Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 047
About this tablet
This is a small clay account tablet from the Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), one of the very earliest phases of writing anywhere in the world. It records a series of numbered entries — quantities of barley, personnel or work-groups, and other goods or titles — followed by summary totals near the end, the standard shape of an early institutional ledger. The individual signs (barley, a possible official's title, a possible personal or group name 'Šubur', a storehouse sign) suggest this tracked grain allotments or receipts tied to named people or work units, but heavy wear on the tablet's surface means much of the fine detail is lost.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like a tally sheet: a series of short entries, each opening with a number followed by a commodity (probably barley) and a word or two identifying who it belongs to or what kind of transaction it was — a work group, an official, something 'given' or 'delivered', a storehouse, maybe a person or group called Šubur. Several entries are too damaged to read at all. Near the bottom the tablet shifts into what look like running totals of barley, closing out the account. The overall picture is of a grain bookkeeping record from one of the world's earliest bureaucracies, but too much of the surface is worn away to reconstruct the full transaction.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2(N14) 4(N01) — barley(?): ... men/work-troop (ERIM~a) ... 2. 2(N14) 1(N01) [...] — oil/fat(?) (NI~a), barley(?) ... 3. 1(N14) 4(N01) — given/deposited(?) (RU) ... 4. 1(N14) 4(N01) — water(?)/cattle-stall(?) (A? AB~a?) ... 5. 1(N01) [...] — [...] ... 6. [...] — [...] (break) 7. 1(N14) 1(N01) — the lord/official (EN~a), delivered/in transit (DU) ... 8. 1(N14) — [...] the SZITA~a1-implement, storehouse (E2~a) ... 9. [...] — [...] Šubur (SZUBUR), TE ... 10. [...] — [...] (break) 11. 1(N14) 1(N58) 6(N14) 1(N01) 3(N08)? — barley (total) 12. 5(N19)? 2(N08~b)? — TE 13. 1(N14) 1(N58) 1(N14) 2(N01) — ... barley [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
2(N14)# 4(N01)# , SZE~a# X ERIM~a# 2(N14)# 1(N01)# [...] , NI~a# SZE~a# X 1(N14)# 4(N01)# , RU#? X 1(N14)# 4(N01)# , A#? AB~a#? X 1(N01)# [...] , [...] X [...] , [...] 1(N14)# 1(N01)# , EN~a# DU# X 1(N14)# , [...] SZITA~a1# E2~a# X [...] , [...] SZUBUR# TE# X [...] , [...] 1(N14) 1(N58) 6(N14) 1(N01) 3(N08)? , SZE~a 5(N19)#? 2(N08~b)#? , TE# 1(N14) 1(N58) 1(N14) 2(N01) , X SZE~a# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 047. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005114) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.